this is a special edition of "nightline." "code 3:the heroes of san bernardino." one year later. >> i looked around. i think i'm the first one here. >> the holiday party terror attack that killed 14 and wounded 22. >> there's people with machine guns shooting up at my work. >> new evidence of the intent. new details about those terrifying minutes from brave first responders. >> i looked down at her and i said, you're not going to die today. >> a grateful survivor saved on the scene. >> i said, please come here, help me. >> the car chase. >> shots fired. >> and shoot-out that ended it out. >> i kept shooting until he stopped moving. >> plus meet the good samaritan who helped take down the terrorists. >> something wasn't quite right. >> this special edition of

of san bernardino" will be back

this is a special edition of "nightline." "code 3: the heroes of san bernardino." >> good evening. what you're about to see and hear in our report tonight will provide harrowing new insight into the terror attack last year in san bernardino, california. new surveillance video, 911 calls, and interviews with first

the horror and the heroism of that day. here's our chief investigative correspondent brian ross with an abc news exclusive. >> 911. >> yes, hi, there may be a shooting. >> unfortunately that's not a totally uncommon call for us to have. >> reporter: but nothing about this day in san bernardino, california, would be routine. >> there guns shooting up at my work. i work at inland regional center -- >> we were getting updates it was now possibly shots fired. >> somebody opened the door and started shooting inside the room. >> then it was updated to, man with a gun. then, possibly an active shooter. >> we have an active shooter here -- >> ma'am, listen to me, take a deep brett. have you seen the person with the gun? >> yeah, they're there, dressed in black -- >> listen, ma'am, we're on the

>> oh my god! >> reporter: it was one year ago this week that terror struck san bernardino and america saw these faces of evil. a husband and wife whose deadly shooting rampage killed 14 people and injured 22 more. tonight for the first time exclusive new video of the shooters as they prepared the attack. chilling photographs taken moments before. and the inspiring stories of the men and women who responded, saving lives, community from further attacks. the heroes of san bernardino. >> 911. >> reporter: those first calls coming from a county conference center in san bernardino. the inland regional center, the irc. county health department employees had gathered for a training session with a holiday lunch to follow. >> inside the room itself at the inland regional center, there was a christmas tree, decorations. >> reporter: at 10:53, one of the county employees, syed

the later. >> did you see people with guns? >> yes. they're wearing all black. >> can you see them anymore? >> no. i'm on the floor. >> okay, stay on the floor. >> is he still shooting? >> i don't know. >> okay. how many rounds did he fire? >> oh my god, a million. >> reporter: lieutenant mike madden, administrative officer in an unmarked car, had pulled over in a target paring lot when calls. >> possible active shooter. >> being primarily a desk jockey the last few years, i had never responded on an actual active shooter. this would have been a first in my 25-year career. >> reporter: madden's calcine is call sign is lincoln 3. he was less than a mile away. >> i was driving faster and faster as i was getting closer. i realized, look ad round, i

think i'm the first one here. i quickly got out of the car. because i didn't want to be a sitting duck, if in fact i was out in a vulnerable position. >> lincoln 3 -- >> go ahead. >> i need two more units with me for an entry team. we have an active shooter, we need an entry team now. >> reporter: madden had only a handgun and left his bullet-proof vest in the trunk. you went in without a vest, just your handgun? >> i'm not the smartest guy ever. >> back two down -- >> reporter: as the first officers inside, their active shooter training dictated they only focus on finding the shooters still believed to be in the building. >> our goal is the initial entry team, had to be locating them and stopping them. >> most difficult thing i've ever done in my life. >> reporter: san bernardino police officer sean sandoval was in the first team to go in. his instructions, find the shooter. meaning, he could not stop to help the wounded.

and the looks on the victims' faces. you can't describe. knowing that some were alive when you entered -- and when you came back they were no longer living. left a huge burden, almost a burden of guilt that we didn't help them and they didn't survive. >> clearly it still bothers you a year later. >> there's not one day that goes by that i don't think about it. >> reporter: but right behind where other officers that stop and help. including county probation officer nate scirano. >> when i encountered that first group of people it sucked the air out of my body. with all the noise including the fire alarm going off, i heard a faint voice. "help me, i'm going to die." that was the second time i lost my air. i couldn't breathe. i looked down. next to my leg, in front of the

this beautiful young lady, severely wounded. >> i was begging. please help me, please help me. >> she proceeds to tell me she had been shot. very nonchalant, very catatonic-like. she tells me where she had been shot. she tells me sha shethat she's o die and not to let her die. >> people were moaning around me. i said, please come here, help me. >> i looked at her, i looked up at i looked down at her and i said, you're not going to die today. >> reporter: he stayed and amanda gaspert lived. >> with my blood loss, if it had been a little longer, i would have died, i believe. >> reporter: today, still in pain and recovering, she sends this message to that officer and others. >> you are one of god's angels here on earth. i believe i have guardian angels but that day god used all those first responders to get in there and to get us out so that we are still alive today.

black suv had made a clean get-away. seen on this traffic surveillance video, right by police cars in the opposite lanes racing to the scene. >> there's a sense of urgency initially, not knowing are there more out there? are there follow-on attacks being planned? >> suspicious vehicle that matches the suspect -- >> is there another target? is there a potential that these suspects are going to continue driving around the city of san bernardino? or move to another location? >> reporter: as rescue teams rush to save the wounded that day in san bernardino -- >> we got a couple bleeding out, we need to get them out of here right now. >> reporter: officers had to also question them for information about who was responsible and right away one employee provided a solid lead. >> he said, i think maybe you need to look at this person. and he gave us the name syed farook. >> reporter: the employee said faruk, in this photo obtained by abc news, posed with fellow health department workers in front of a christmas tree and

the shooting started. >> he was very irritated and upset. >> reporter: the name faruk was fed back to san bernardino police headquarters and donnie rusfanca, the department's veteran analyst who put the name in law enforcement data bases. >> i didn't see anything initially. >> 911 emergency. >> reporter: moments later a 911 call that would be the turning point. >> yes, i'm calling -- i've just been watching the tv and there was a black suv that turned in front of >> there was such a sudden abrupt move that i was thinking, hm. this is a little unusual for a vehicle coming from utah. >> reporter: 61-year-old stewart boden, computer programmer for the county, wasn't aware police were looking for a black suv when a car of that make cut in front of him at this intersection. >> i had noticed the license plate. and as they were waiting to turn

vehicle coming, i go, i think i need to commit that license plate to memory. >> because? >> because something wasn't quite right. >> the suspects perhaps left the scene in a black suv -- >> when i got home i turned on the tv. something said, the suspects fled in a black suv. i saw something, i needed to say something. >> about 20, 25 minutes ago, and i didn't suv at that time. >> a black suv? >> yeah. and i do have a good memory. utah license plate. >> okay. >> x52-3ry. >> that was the turning point in the investigation. >> reporter: the plate number came back to the enterprise car rental company. it had been rented by a syed faruk. >> my hands started to shake at that point. i thought, wow, we really don't have just a person of interest,

we need to locate this person. >> reporter: as police and the fbi would later learn, faruk and his wife, a pakistani he married overseas and brought to the u.s., had been secretly planning the attack for a long time. now thanks to the call from stewart bodien, the memory man, donnie rusfanken sending officers, her friends, into a dangerous confrontation. >> this person had already done such harm and damage to the citizens of the city. to know legitimate address, a good address -- but what was next? what was around the corner? >> they're putting vests on inside, shots fired, shots fired. >> reporter: when we come back. c plaque psoriasis made a simple trip to the grocery store anything but simple. so i had an important conversation with my dermatologist about humira. he explained that humira works inside my body to target and help block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to my symptoms. in clinical trials, most adults taking humira

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welcome back. thanks to a good samaritan with an extraordinary memory, police in san bernardino have the license plate of the killers who carried out one of the deadliest terror attacks in american history. now they have to find and stop them. once again tonight here's brian ross. >> reporter: this surveillance video obtained by abc news shows syed faruk at firing range just a few days before the attack. practicing with the weapons he and his wife would use to kill 14 people and wound 22 more. >> they certainly were equipped for it, they were armed for it. they had high-powered weaponry. they had lots of ammunition. they had bombs at their disposal. >> reporter: officials now believe they may know what led the couple to attack that day. outrage over christmas. expressed in an e-mail to faruk

by the fbi. >> she had essentially made the statement in an online account that she didn't think a muslim should have to participate in a nonmuslim holiday event. you could clearly see from pictures inside that room there was somewhat of a festive atmosphere. it had those christmas overtones to it. that is really one of the very few pieces of potential evidence that we have that we can truly point to and say that possibly is a motive in this case. >> reporter: inspired, the fbi >> after the shooting you add the wife who went on social media and declared her allegiance to al baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliphate leader. >> reporter: ironically agents discovered the couple wasn't even sure of baghdadi's name until the morning of the shooting. >> that particular morning, there was online research done with an account associated with them where they were researching the leader of the islamic state.

it was so they had to have the name to actually pledge their allegiance, so to speak. >> reporter: three hours after the shooting, an undercover san bernardino police team arrived at the home address for faruk. they saw him pull out in his black suv. >> just in time. had we been several seconds later we probably would have missed him. >> reporter: sergeant gary shulky, undercover narcotics detective in an unmarked consider, led the team following the suv with officers behind him >> like we do with a drug suspect, we don't want them to know we're following them. >> reporter: to their surprise, it aeared faruk was heading right back to the scene of the shooting at the irc. >> they came back by the crime scene a number of times. they were very, very close to our crime scene several times within that four-hour time period. >> reporter: san bernardino chief jared bugwan believes they were essentially circling the scene for hours after the attack. >> came very, very close to the inland regional center a number

again and again to remotely detonate three pipe bombs they had left behind that had gone unnoticed. >> you can presume they had the detonator in their car. that potentially it was did try to get close enough to detonate that device still. >> reporter: before they could this time, two marked squad cars pulled in behind them with lights and sirens. >> sirens sounded like this. [ sirens ] >> reporter: sergeant andy capps of redlands was just behind the suspects. >> as we drove when they took off, i saw them the passenger to the driver passing articles or items to each other inside the car. >> looks like they're putting vests on inside. shots fired, shots fired. they're firing at law enforcement. >> reporter: deputy sean wallen of the san bernardino sheriff's office was the target. his patrol car was just 25 yards

>> driving like this. >> your knee was steering? >> steering with my left knee. gas with the right knee. talking with my left hand. pulling my rifle out of the passenger seat. the suspect vehicle suddenly stopped, slamming on his brakes. they're shooting at us from an suv. crossfire. one's in the trunk. >> i got it. >> ran to the back portion right here. shooting this way. towards the male suspect. and i was hunkered down again like this. shooting back at them. >> reporter: faruk made a break from the vehicle to get even closer to deputy wallen, firing as he ran. >> either trying to get to the houses or trying to flank me, for whatever. >> to come up on you? >> yeah, he was about probably 50 feet away.

in to protect wallen. >> i remember yelling at wall.to come back. that's when i felt the bullet hit me in my leg. my leg kind of gave out. i remember stumbling and fell into the grass over there at the curb. >> we have one officer down. >> copy. >> i didn't see blood pouring out of my leg like there was going to be -- you know, a femoral hit or anything. okay, got to keep fighting, i'm not going down like this. so i pushed myself back into the street and kept shooting at the suv. >> even after being hit? >> yeah. >> reporter: and he continued firing at faruk, now down on the street. >> i kept shooting until he stopped moving. >> reporter: faruk's wife malik was still firing from the back of the black suv. >> look at all the bullet holes in the windshield. >> she didn't stop shooting until she was stopped. at a certain point she was struck by i think at least 15 rounds. >> reporter: not certain she was dead, and whether there were explosives rigged to go off

pull her out. and it was only then that authorities realized it was a woman. faruk's wife, the mother of an infant child left behind who is now in foster care. >> it certainly surprised me that you'd have a woman with a 6-month-old baby who could do something like this. that's very hard for us to comprehend. >> reporter: four hours and 17 minutes after the first shots were fired, the two shooters, the two terrorists, were dead. they had killed 14 people and injured 22 others and left permanent scars in the lives of hundreds more. still evident now one year later. for "nightline," brian ross, san bernardino, california. >> our thanks to brian ross for his extraordinary reporting tonight. we'll be right back. during the ford year end event, discover why ford is america's best-selling brand.

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one final note here tonight. the attack in san bernardino sadly was the beginning of a year that saw terror attacks in brussels, orlando, chelsea in